


walking in the sun

by ferim



Series: (over and over) [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - College/University, Epilogue, House Party, M/M, Movie Reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26587273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferim/pseuds/ferim
Summary: “so it’s a coming of age story?”“sort of like that,” sylvain answers, placing his chin on felix’s shoulder. “but it’s subtle.”with the credits about to roll, sylvain is reminded by a familiar presence of how far he's gotten.for sylvix week 2020 (college and slight pda)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: (over and over) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932850
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	walking in the sun

**Author's Note:**

> (sidenote i didnt know that there was a whole collection for this week so if yall dont mind i will just add lol)
> 
> been wanting to try writing smth like this,, smth like a movie scene buuut since it's not something i do often it's obviously rough around the edges. regardless i hope you enjoy it
> 
> they're happy this time!!

Sylvain recalls the scene before the film even gets to it. The mingle of black and white, of a woman pouring a drink, of companions she turns towards to reveal something beyond her chosen persona. And Sylvain watches with rapt awe similar to the first time he’s seen it.

She looks at her companion, taking a chance. _“I want this one moment —”_

But by some strange circumstance, Felix actually does remind him of the get together.

“You promised Hilda you’d make it,” he tells him after a hit to Sylvain’s head with a soft pillow. “You made me get ready at 6PM.” And then another. Sylvain grins, pausing the film before Felix gets another chance.

“I got it, I got it.” He stretches as much as he could on the couch and Felix eyes him the entire time until he finally closes his laptop.

Sylvain doesn’t fault him for the mildly aggressive pestering. He’s used to it even from Dimitri or Ingrid. It’s the unnerving feeling, they said, when he’s in his film major state and all he knows is his films, unmoving from his spot as he digests every scene. Felix has been subjected to silence so alarming, only the sound of a playing film echoing their apartment walls, that it’s almost instinctual now how he gets Sylvain out of his bubble.

It’s also why Felix leans over easily after one more hit of the pillow, performing an action he’s recently realized will also get Sylvain to stop with his movie binges. Sylvain tries to complain but is quickly silenced when he feels a hand cradling his head, Felix tilting it for a kiss.

The movie is not yet left forgotten, Felix knows that for sure, so he makes it so by deepening the kiss and pressing further. The pillow is dropped in favor of using both hands to hold, and hands are moving everywhere on both of them. Sylvain laughs (he can’t help but laugh, has been laughing and laughing since a yesterday morning).

Unfortunately, nothing happens beyond that, and before Sylvain can fully pull Felix down to his lap, his boyfriend (his boyfriend!) pulls away. He has his arms on Sylvain’s shoulders, and Sylvain would’ve been comfortable with the prolonged eye contact — Felix doesn’t normally spend any longer than a few seconds — but Felix leans over to give one more peck before pulling him up to stand. He looks exasperated at the need to do all this, and Sylvain smiles unbidden.

The protagonist of his favorite film sits on one side, he thinks, waiting for the opportunity to continue her monologue.

There’s more pulling towards where they left their coats to hang. “You watch that all the time,” Felix reminds him, which yes, is true. He’s been drawn to that film more times than he could count, remembering a time he would watch it in between the assigned ones he was told to study. He’s grinning before moving close to Felix’s space, ignoring the coat Felix is trying to remove from its hanger. Smiling impossibly wider, he presses his lips to his forehead as soon as Felix turns.

His affections are ignored, but Sylvain still sees the red on his ears. “Watch it later,” Felix tells him instead because he knows why Sylvain loves watching that film no matter how mundane it looks. He’s watched it himself and has admitted as much. Boring, he grumbled. Sylvain doesn’t fault him.

The mediocre life of a woman without a goal in life can be rather dull to watch.

When Sylvain smacks a loud kiss on his forehead this time, Felix retaliates with a bite to his neck. It’s in no way sexy especially when accompanied with a glare of fake menace.

He lets Felix pull him towards the door, and it’s amusing how Felix grumbles about having to attend even though he looks excited himself. It’s the slight shift, the small things. But even Sylvain knows Felix wants to meet some of the people Hilda was able to gather for their small reunion. There are some they haven’t seen in months due to shifting schedules and far off campus buildings. There are also some that they haven’t see for the past three days since they were too busy with each other.

He looks at Felix putting on his shoes, gaze fond and amused, and Sylvain is wondering if this is also Hilda’s way of reporting to her that it’s finally happened.

The doors are all locked and everything’s turned off by the time they close the door. The film can be finished later, he thinks, because Sylvain likes it, sees bits of himself clearly in the cracks of each scene. But he has also begun to see less and less of himself in the protagonist. He leaves the protagonist still sitting on their couch, and he believes it’s fine to put it aside. The scene he had gotten to is still clearly engraved in his mind after all. He can watch it later, see himself lose his place in what he thought the protagonist is as a person, and hopefully Felix can accompany him.

Sylvain holds Felix’s hand as they walk out the building. Winter will come to an end in some weeks, but the chill is as persistent as it was a few days ago, more so now that the sun is no longer present. They walk out and onto the streets side by side and, as if an echo of the film he’s left on pause, the protagonist, lost as she is, walks on his other side.

No longer seated like in the film, she walks similar to how Sylvain saw her. Her gait familiar in its movement, she speaks in a similar tone, continuing her monologue like in the presence of a friend. _it’s that thing when you’re with someone,_ a long pause, as if she’s thinking, as if she needs to think about a line Sylvain’s heard her relay in a film multiple times.

She keeps walking with them, and the reminder has him gripping Felix tighter. It does things to his heart when Felix responds by moving closer. It does a lot. More than he’s ever expected.

He’s happy. The protagonist walks along with them, adding one more thing, gesturing with one hand as if it’ll explain things further. _and you love them and they know it… and— and they love you and you know it._

Felix knows why Sylvain likes that film, probably knows more than Sylvain thinks he does given how familiar they are with each other. No longer does he experience the same confusion as when he first watched it, but the sentimentality is never ignored. It can’t be ignored. Every step the two take at this moment, with the protagonist there right beside them, makes Sylvain wonder if the footsteps he’s hearing are of three people.

The protagonist is silent, walking on his other side while he holds onto Felix. And Sylvain appreciates — with every embrace and peck they are both allowed to have in between them — that Felix gave him a chance to separate himself from her.

He chuckles softly at the idea because he knows Felix will tell him he did that all on his own, and that he was only there because he wanted to be there. He held out his hand to Sylvain as an anchor, and Sylvain himself rode the waves to his own introspection.

When Felix looks over in question, Sylvain shakes his head. The smile he’s had on for days is present, openly showing to Felix his happiness. They keep walking, the lines of a scene so close to his heart echoes in his head as they do.

Hilda’s obnoxiously large apartment is not far from their own, so they didn’t have to walk long to see Claude and Yuri already having taken over the makeshift bar. Can you even call it a bar when it merely consisted of all the booze everyone brought? The two look like they’re doing fine with the selection, which is probably due to whatever else is left for them to mix with in Hilda’s ridiculous kitchen.

Sylvain and Felix last long enough together to get sangrias from a smirking Yuri before Sylvain is inevitably dragged away by Hilda. He turns to wink at Felix to let him know he’s got this, but he sees an equal predicament in the form of an excited Annette.

It’s all so amusing that Sylvain just laughs and laughs and laughs.

He only gets the chance to see Felix in parts in between Sylvain getting dragged to different friend groups. A lot of them are people he hasn’t seen in a while yet one after another they tell him words and praises so similar that they begin to blend with each glass he drinks.

One of them is with Dorothea, smacking him on the back as congratulations, thanking him that he’s finally said something to stop the constant stream of trashy romance films she’s seen him binge on occasion.

It earns her a mild shove in embarrassment. It also earns him more pats on the back, the range of its force going from caring to downright violent. When more people realize that he did actually confess to his longterm roommate-best friend-childhood friend, cheers erupt with every new person he’s pushed to. Praises and applause are thrown at him left and right, and it’s overwhelming, if he’s being honest about it. Close to humiliating, when he ruminates about it.

When he gets pushed towards Linhardt’s corner and even he ends up congratulating him, Sylvain can’t help but use the alcohol as an excuse for his embarrassment.

He drinks and drinks and drinks, the alcohol burning even with his strong tolerance, but he’s uncaring for it because holy shit, was he that obvious?

It’s some time later when he gets his answer. Hilda is on one side of her huge sofa, drinking some blue concoction that Claude offered her. She’s smiling. That’s not good.

“You always watch really romantic films with a straight face when you got sad over him.” She ends it with a claim that it was funny, like one final nail on his coffin.

He takes the drink Claude also offers him, downing it in one go.

By midnight, when the music has gotten louder and he hears a voice similar to Dorothea’s singing along to a tune, Sylvain sees Felix again.

The protagonist is beside Sylvain, and from the corner of his eye he thinks she’s holding a drink of her own. Perhaps it’s the same one from the film he paused for later. No one’s approached him after the multitude of jokes and merriment he got from his friends earlier, and he lets himself have this moment of rest. So he stands on one side with his drink, with the protagonist, and he sees Felix again.

 _but it’s a party,_ she continues, tone so out of place in the ruckus of the room. She continues as Sylvain looks at Felix. _and you’re both talking to other people and you’re laughing and shining_

Felix is with Annette and Ashe, both talking rapidly if the hand movements were anything to go by. He’s far, all the way on the other side of Hilda’s obnoxious living room. But the singing ends and someone else’s voice comes up, and Felix turns to him.

The protagonist is ever-present. _and you look across the room and, and catch each other’s eyes._ Sylvain thinks she takes a swig of her drink, reminding him of her words, of what he’s feeling. Overwhelming.

 _but not because you’re possessive or it’s precisely sexual,_ she reminds him, and the tone shifts. It shifts so slightly, full of wanting, hoping, feelings echoed between those words. _but because that is your person in this life._

Felix doesn’t turn to him for long, but the words are heard so clearly, completely, as he does so. He merely smiles, and it shouldn’t be so clear given the distance but it is. He smiles and he looks back to his companions and Sylvain feels his breath hitch. Overwhelming, overwhelmed. So Sylvain lifts his glass to his lips, but he takes no sip. He doesn’t know what he looks like, can’t bother to care as he feels breathless at this moment.

The protagonist, as she is, keeps speaking. There’s no drink on her hands anymore, merely gestures. Not too big, but she moves, wanting to convey more of what she wants to say.

 _it’s, it’s this secret world that exists right there._ She looks like she wants to point to somewhere, somewhere right in front of Sylvain. _in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about._ She keeps her hands moving, as if she’s going to point directly at Felix.

Then a pause. Sylvain drinks from his glass this time. The protagonist, as if knowing she cannot explain her thoughts as clear as she wants them to be, puts a hand on her lips briefly before trying again. Sylvain thinks she’s looking straight at Felix.

_sort of like — sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us_

And when he downs the rest of his drink he can’t help but echo the continuation with her, fond of it all. _but we don’t have the ability to perceive them._

He says it the same time she does, but his is phrased like a question, as if she will nod along and agree, but she goes quiet. The hand movements have stopped. All that’s left is a tone so out of place for this room.

 _that’s — that’s what I want._ And the sound of this, so neutral, is far from how Sylvain first heard it, back at a time when Sylvain still doubted himself completely and all he could hear was desperation.

It’s overwhelming even if all he does is continue to look down at his glass. Overwhelming how commonplace these new changes have become when all the pieces finally fell together two days ago. And he’s overcome with a feeling so much bigger than what he’s used to acknowledging, its existence something he’s finally allowing for himself when Felix declared he felt the same way. It’s bewildering how in that moment two days ago, Sylvain let himself know that he was allowed to have this.

And the protagonist, as if congratulating him, like a friend seeing the achievement of another, repeats those words to him. It reminds Sylvain of the first time he’s seen that film, years ago full of wanting, and it reminds him, yet again that he has wanted that moment.

Now he can claim it. Has claimed it.

He sees the protagonist continue to speak from beside him, but he no longer hears her voice. He doesn’t hear her excuse her desires, doesn’t hear how she wants this beyond just a simple relationship. He doesn’t turn to her direction until he feels a touch on his arm, and upon looking up meets Felix’s questioning gaze.

Another thing that overwhelms him, eyes looking in concern, frown in place to mask it. So natural.

It’s natural, how he’s taken the spot where the protagonist was standing beside Sylvain. It’s natural and Sylvain can now claim it without repercussions. It’s why he’s been smiling, been laughing. Felix looks at him with a hidden kind of worry and his lips press tightly into a thin line. Sylvain can’t help it. Overwhelmed, overwhelming as this all is. He can’t help but lean over for a taste.

Someone yells at them to get a room.

“So it’s a coming of age story?” Felix questions from the bundle of blankets Sylvain wrapped around him. Sylvain’s also hugging said blanket bundle affectionately. Felix thinks it’s to prevent him from squirming free when he starts getting confused, but it’s because the winter chill hasn’t completely left and Sylvain claims he’ll get cold. His hair is still wet from the shower, after all, and he needs to warm himself up after getting a mug full of chilled alcohol poured on his head courtesy of a drunk Caspar. Felix had rushed them home immediately after that.

“Sort of like that,” Sylvain answers, placing his chin on Felix’s shoulder. “But it’s subtle.”

The film is coming to a close in front of them, the tone of it all seemingly neutral. It all looks so neutral when Sylvain thinks about it. Because a coming of age story doesn’t have to have big realizations and impossible goals. The becoming of a person can be vague, can entail long periods of time, can reach a point of conclusion so natural one does not need to celebrate — no matter the effort put in to reach that moment.

He hears a hum. “Is she happy?”

And it’s such a quick answer from Sylvain, because he can only base it on his own experiences. He also cannot lie to Felix. “I don’t think so.”

Sylvain doesn’t press closer because he doesn’t have to. It’s Felix that presses his back to him. It’s Felix that leans his head to press softly against Sylvain’s. And the subtlety of it, the overall effort it took him to reach this point, a conclusion so natural he can no longer question if he’s deserving of it, has Sylvain breaking into a smile.

And this moment, he believes, was also one of his wants. And the credits roll as he thinks, with all the clarity brought forth by a dissipating storm, that this is something he is also allowed to have.

**Author's Note:**

> the film is frances ha


End file.
